Hallettsville rolls over East Bernard to stay perfect in district

HALLETTSVILLE - Hallettsville's run to last season's state basketball tournament was keyed in a large part by its pressure defense.

Hallettsville is showing no signs of letting up this season.

"Defensively, we were good last year," said Hallettsville coach Rich Dozier. "Defensively, we are much, much better than we were last year and you can see it in the scores."

Hallettsville used its defense to create a flurry of easy baskets and rolled to 97-26 District 28-2A win over East Bernard on Saturday at the Hallettsville gym.

Hallettsville, ranked No. 7 in Class 2A, held East Bernard under double digits in every quarter, while improving to 25-4 and 9-0 in district.

"We have three major goals and we're about halfway through the second one," Dozier said. "We've had some grind out games and some tempo games. We're kind of learning how to win whatever is given to us."

Hallettsville had the tempo to its liking against East Bernard (6-18, 1-9) and turned it into easy baskets.

The Brahmas constantly got free in the lane and on the baseline and had the game in hand by the end of the first quarter.

"We got a lot of shots off and we had a lot of possessions," said Christian Wood-Dvorak, who scored 19 of his game-high 25 points in the first half. "We got to the rim and we were pretty aggressive."

Hallettsville scored the game's first nine points and was up 32-3 when Wood-Dvorak made a jumper with 6:06 left in the second quarter.

"When Christian can hit that free throw or 3-pointer early it really spreads the defense and that's really what happened," Dozier said. "We did get them spread out and we did make that extra pass and you do that it's awesome."